Teenager Accused of Rape Deserves Leniency Because He's From a 'Good Family,' Judge Says

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

Teenager Accused of Rape Deserves Leniency Because He’s From a ‘Good Family,’ Judge Says

The family court judge also said the victim should have been told that pressing charges would destroy the accused’s life.

By Luis Ferré-Sadurní
July 2, 2019

The 16-year-old girl was visibly intoxicated, her speech slurred, when a drunk 16-year-old boy sexually assaulted her in a dark basement during an alcohol-fueled pajama party in New Jersey, prosecutors said.

The boy filmed himself penetrating her from behind, her torso exposed, her head hanging down, prosecutors said. He later shared the cellphone video among friends, investigators said, and sent a text that said, “When your first time having sex was rape.”

But a family court judge said it wasn’t rape. Instead, he wondered aloud if it was sexual assault, defining rape as something reserved for an attack at gunpoint by strangers.

He also said the young man came from a good family, attended an excellent school, had terrific grades and was an Eagle scout. Prosecutors, the judge said, should have explained to the girl and her family that pressing charges would destroy the boy’s life.

So he denied prosecutors’ motion to try the 16-year-old as an adult. “He is clearly a candidate for not just college but probably for a good college,” Judge James Troiano of Superior Court said last year in a two-hour decision while sitting in Monmouth County.

Now the judge has been sharply rebuked by an appeals court in a scathing 14-page ruling that warned the judge against showing bias toward privileged teenagers.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/nyregion/judge-james-troiano-rape.html

[elleng]

1. Now the judge has been sharply rebuked.

[monmouth4]

2. Sounds like he was paid off..n/t

[hlthe2b]

5. Yup... my thoughts, exactly.

[dalton99a]

9. +1

[exboyfil]

3. Why are expectations lower for those privileged?

They should be higher if anything.

[Harker]

7. Chivalry is dead.

Amongst those who invented it, anyhow. Maybe honor stands a chance.

[hlthe2b]

4. To me, there has been a real problem with always referring to the wide range of horrific sexual

behaviors as "sexual assault". While "rape means something to nearly everyone, so many people hear only the word "assault" and assume an improper "touch. Further, they typically assume the most benign of touch, no matter whether the victim is black & blue with a mandibular fracture, or describes other forced behaviors under knife or gunpoint. While all rape is sexual assault, not all sexual assault is rape, but when it legally applies, the word rape needs to be used IMO.

And this a-hole judge and all those like him need to go... and they need a big load of their cumulative karma delivered shortly thereafter.

[pansypoo53219]

6. even the twerp called it rape.

can we look at what else this judge has ruled?

[dalton99a]

8. Judge James G. Troiano:

James G. Troiano is a senior judge on the Vicinage 5 Superior Court in New Jersey. Troiano was appointed to the court in 1992 and obtained tenured status in 1999. Troiano was recalled to the bench as a senior judge for two-year terms in January 2013 and again in January 2015.

Troiano received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University in 1972 and his J.D. from Cumberland School of Law at Stamford University in 1975.

[alittlelark]

10. ......

l

[keithbvadu2]

11. Almost like affluenza?

Almost like affluenza?

[FiveGoodMen]

12. EXACTLY like it!